Alive Again: Recovering from Alcoholism and Drug Addiction

By Howard C. Samuels and Jane O'Boyle

A powerful book on addiction recovery by a doctor who overcame addiction himself, the renowned founder and president of The Hills Treatment Center in Los Angeles

Howard Samuels is one of the world's leading drug and alcohol addiction experts who runs the prestigious The Hills Treatment Center in Los Angeles. Decades ago, from the age of sixteen until he was thirty-two, Dr. Samuels had his own intense struggle with addiction to cocaine and heroin. Using his own compelling story as inspiration as well as case studies of his patients from all walks of life, Dr. Samuels shows how readers can recover from alcoholism and drug addiction by following this 12-step program to happiness and fulfillment in sobriety. This self-help book provides hope, inspiration, and prescriptive advice for those who want to recover as well as guidance for friends and family members seeking help for someone they love.

• Written from the unique perspective of a recovering addict who has helped thousands of people overcome addiction to alcohol and drugs
• Shares with readers for the first time in book form The Hills' world-renowned treatment program
• Tells Samuels' personal recovery story as the son of a prominent politician and businessman among the rich and famous in New York and Washington
• Contains a groundbreaking prescriptive program showing how to work each of the 12 steps
• Examines the cause of addictions, relapses, and fallback addictions
• Contains important information for family and friends of those struggling with addiction, including steps for intervention and healing
• The author appears regularly on TV

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Mar 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781118520574

Book preview

Introduction

My parents were upstairs, having cocktails with their friends: the mayor of New York City, John Lindsay; Ted Kennedy; Christopher Dodd; Mario Cuomo; the usual crowd. My father was running for governor again in the New York state primary. A brilliant graduate of MIT, my dad had invented plastic Baggies and Hefty bags, worked for General George Patton in the war in Europe, then served as undersecretary of commerce for President Lyndon Johnson. We had moved to New York from Washington, D.C., and our family was renting a penthouse duplex that belonged to the Broadway star Mary Martin. My parents, siblings, and I shared the building with Greta Garbo and the Heinz family, among other well-to-do New Yorkers. The sunrise views over the East River were magnificent, and every room was filled with fine art. I remember that Ms. Martin owned many sculptures that depicted hands: wringing hands, open hands, marble hands that reached up from coffee tables, gold hands that prayed on bookshelves. My bedroom was on the lower floor, with an elegant bathroom that had walls covered in silk. The fabric was pale gray, printed with Chinese scenes, birds and flowers. I heard the tinkling of ice cubes and laughter upstairs, while I sat on the floor of the bathroom, a cigarette dangling from my lips. I had a needle in my arm, pushing it in and out—booting heroin I'd just copped down in the East Village—rushing my brains out. I was twenty, fresh off two arrests for drug possession, unemployed, misunderstood, a convicted felon, a junkie. But I owned the fucking world. I pulled out the needle and loosened the tourniquet, feeling the relief enter my bloodstream. I could hear Ted Kennedy's voice and my father serving more drinks upstairs. The syringe in my hand glowed happy red, with some of my own blood. I pressed my thumb hard, spraying blood all over the silk wall fabric. In my world of darkness and destruction, that felt pretty good.

I hit bottom again and again, for twelve more years after that. Like all addicts, I would toe the line for a while but then relapse, breaking my parents' hearts more times than I can count. If anyone was an incorrigible drug addict, it was me. I was an addict who would forget that I was an addict, and I put on a terrific act. I presented myself well, appearing quite articulate and friendly—part of my enormous talent for manipulation. When I share my horror stories of addiction now, with patients and their families, they are surprised, but they nod their heads in recognition. They also feel a little kernel of hope, because I have been sober now for twenty-eight years. And if a dope fiend like me can recover and live a normal life, so can you or your loved one.

After I became sober, I designed effective recovery programs for rehabilitation centers. I have treated thousands of addicts and alcoholics and have learned through experience what has proved successful for recovery. This book encapsulates my program to slay the beast of addiction. I wrote this book to help families who have already identified that there is a problem with addiction—whether it is you or another member of your family. Perhaps you have a parent who spends every evening drinking a case of beer or a son who's been arrested with a DUI. Your sister may be a heroin addict, or your roommate stays up all night doing cocaine and has stopped paying the rent. Maybe you have blackouts when you drink and get into fights at bars or show up late to work one too many times. Maybe you've lost your savings by bailing out your brother, yet again. He's tried to quit and feels awful but has no control over his desire to use drugs. Perhaps you have just lost your job because you couldn't pass the company drug test.

There are times when recovery seems impossible. I've been there. I know. But I have dedicated my life in sobriety to implementing treatment programs that work. Although I have a doctorate in psychology, I gained the most expertise while struggling with my own addiction, until the age of thirty-two. That's where I learned that addicts are masters at lying and manipulation. Addiction is the one disease that will tell you that you don't have a disease. Addiction will lie to you: I know I can't do cocaine anymore, but I can handle a little glass of scotch. I have a good job, so what if I drink a bottle of wine every night? It's just a little weed; I've got everything under control.

The other challenge with this disease is that it is not eliminated by simple surgery or controlled by a pill. It is managed only by psychotherapy that is often traumatic—a 12-step program—followed by years of conscientious behavior. I have yet to see a patient who quits her addiction easily and quickly. She might make a good-faith effort, really work at it for a couple months, but then there will be an office party, and she'll believe she has learned how to control her addiction. She's still seeing her therapist. She's feeling all right, and it's only one drink; her issues aren't with alcohol anyway, it's only this one time. The addict thinks he is cleverer than other abusers of drugs and alcohol, that he will be the exception who can handle the issue by himself. He will believe with all his heart that he can make it on his own. Yet one thing always leads to another.

The landscape of addiction is different today than it used to be, and I work with this changed environment every day. Avenues to addiction appear for kids at a younger and younger age. Now, there is also a higher level of acceptance for drinking and drugging. Kids bypass old-fashioned high school drinking and go straight to snorting OxyContin, which is easily available in many medicine cabinets. Prescription drugs such as Vicodin, Xanax, Percocet, and Ambien have enormously increased our addict population. We know marijuana is addicting, and now even more so when it is legally prescribed by a medical doctor (at least, in California), not for cancer or epilepsy but for anxiety. Heroin and crack are cheaper than ever. Adderall is an amphetamine that teens love to use to help them study or to lose weight. Cocaine is even more prevalent—we see young celebrities emerge from criminal convictions unscathed, unremorseful, and still addicted. In addition to the run-of-the-mill narcotics, we have an alarming number of new drugs, some of which cause lasting brain damage: crystal meth, bath salts, Ecstasy, salvia, and who knows what will be invented tomorrow?

What hasn't changed is this: the nature of addiction. The need to use, self-medicate, and self-destruct is the manifestation of an inner beast. It's the part of us that tells us, You're stupid, Your parents don't want you, or You will never fit in. We all have that beast inside us, whether we're addicts or not. Many of you can cope with that dark, negative part of your persona—or ignore it—and not succumb to the seduction of drugs or alcohol. But for those who are coming of age or living in dysfunctional family situations, keeping up with sophisticated peer groups, insecure, unemployed, clinically depressed, or genetically predisposed to addiction in the first place, well, your disease is going to win round one.

The disease is emotional emptiness, lack of self-esteem or personal fulfillment, and it's why we drink and do drugs. We are numbing ourselves to loneliness, fear, alienation, emotional or physical abuse, isolation, or self-doubt. Of course, many people have these conditions and do not become addicts. They cope with their demons in other ways. Yet more and more people are relying on drugs and alcohol.

One recent study from Phoenix House (where I spent two years in rehab) attributes our current rise in addiction rates to the recent economic turndown, reflecting a further devastating impact on individuals, families, and entire communities. According to this study, 34 percent of respondents have a friend or a family member who is currently struggling with substance abuse, and 40 percent say that drugs have caused trouble in their families at some point. About a third of the respondents reported more drinking and more drug use since the financial turndown on the part of friends, coworkers, and family members. There seem to be even more reasons for people to medicate themselves on a daily basis. Many of us seem unable to be comfortable in our own skin. A recent study estimated that 20 million Americans age twelve and over are in need of addiction treatment and are not receiving it. Unfortunately, even the majority of people who do seek out treatment will fail.

Alcoholics and addicts are hitting bottom much faster—in their twenties, instead of their forties—and that can be seen as good news, in one respect. With addicts at younger ages, families can intervene more quickly. Helping an addict who is still young gives him or her a greater chance of success. The addict is not as experienced at manipulation and lying, which someone like me had years to perfect. Twenty, thirty years of addictive behavior is harder to change. Some of us older addicts are the victims of our happy hour traditions and Western standards in medicine, where we sometimes treat not the cause of our ailments but only the symptoms with remedies such as Vicodin, Xanax, and Ambien.

The other good news is that we have more community awareness of the issue and of the challenges to successful recovery and more facilities and professionals who provide effective treatment. In 2012, the standard reference book for psychiatric disorders expanded its definition of addiction to include not only substance abuse and alcoholism, but also behavioral addictions such as sex and gambling. This means that more medical experts understand the evolving areas and challenges of what can trigger the pleasure impulses in our brains, to the extent that these triggers can damage our lives.

I draw upon my own experiences, as well as on case studies from my clients and coworkers, because I know many of you will relate to them. There are few, if any, books about recovery that come from a therapist who has also been an addict. It is my experience that patients respond more to therapists who they know have been to that same hell where they are living. Each of us has a unique story, but every story illustrates that you can reach that authentic self inside you who is waiting to be found. She's hiding behind that inner beast that fills you with self-doubt and rage.

This book is a step-by-step guide for finding help, whether you are an addict or you have a loved one who is. If a family member is an addict, you are basically the only one who can help save that person. I explain why many addicts and alcoholics behave the way they do and what are the best things you can do to heal yourself and your family. I help you understand the root causes of this disease and the best steps you can take toward recovery. This involves healing for the whole family, because everyone suffers when there's an addict in the family, whether it is you, your child, your spouse, your sibling, or your parent.

In Alive Again, I describe the nature of addiction, first by telling you my story and the stories of people I work with. I describe how the disease works at tearing down each of us and why addiction can frequently be the easiest way to cope with the beast. I include a chapter on groundbreaking studies about the role of brain development, particularly in the frontal lobe. Our brains are still developing until age twenty-two (for girls) and age twenty-six (for boys), and when dopamine and serotonin confront changing hormones and unreliable social environments, you have recipes for disaster.

A patient cannot begin recovery until he or she has hit bottom. Most clients I see have yet to reach that point; in fact, many are still drugging and drinking while they're in therapy with me. There was once a time when people thought shaming someone in a boot-camp environment would hasten the patient to reach bottom. I have learned that doesn't really work: a patient will say and do anything to appear compliant and to avoid painful confrontation. I know that addicts have dual natures—one bent on self-destruction and negativity, and one that dreams of peace and happiness. Therapy is useful only when patients have moved beyond shame, when they're no longer embarrassed to admit they have a problem and need help. This usually occurs when they hit bottom, often after landing in jail or in a hospital. I try to convince the patients that I am on their side, to help them do battle against their disease, and that I will be with them every step of the way. While the patient and I form a team to fight anger, delusion, and addiction, I also try to help this individual form a sense of self-respect and an engagement with real life. Sometimes, parents think that money, a new car, or a place to live will bring their children happiness and sobriety. In fact, those things only cause the addiction to become worse. I so often see kids and adults who have what I call the Disease of More. There's just never enough money or love, or power or career success or fame. Then there's never enough booze or drugs.

Chapter 5 is dedicated to finding an effective therapist and determining what his or her role is in the rehab process. I also detail the specific programs that we implement at the Hills, our California rehabilitation center, and offer facts about each type of addiction, as well as consider the mental conditions and the living situation for the patient. I do not recommend that you or your family act as your own therapists—you should always turn to a professional. Alive Again is a guide that explains the options and the processes, and that outlines the best chances for success.

Part of my therapy program prepares you for the arrival of a new addiction. As a fallback, many addicts turn to cigarettes or sex or even sitting in a dark room playing video games all day. I walk you through the work on removing the shame and the guilt that drive these compulsions. Although Alive Again is not in itself a 12-step guide, I explain why 12-step programs work, how to find them, and what other additional steps lead to success in recovery.

One hallmark in the 12-step group philosophy is not only community support but also providing service to others, which is actually service to yourself. After several years of sobriety, I never understood what it meant to have a higher power. One day I was working as a counselor for Phoenix House in New York City, sitting on a stoop on the Upper West Side with a sixteen-year-old addict. He was dying to go out to get loaded, filled with anger at his parents and resentment of society, and looking for reasons why it was okay for him to go out and score drugs. I'd been there; I knew exactly how he felt. I talked to him for maybe half an hour, right there on West 74th Street, and, at least that day, he did not go get high. It was the first time since I'd been sober that I felt some fucking self-worth. This young man had broken down and admitted his fears and his insecurities. To be a part of that process while he opened up emotionally was a very spiritual experience for me. I'd failed at school and never had a career path, but at that moment I knew my calling was to help others in the community. That was my higher power. That was my authentic self.

I went to rehab twice. The first time it didn't take. As I mentioned, relapse is part of recovery—if you make it back alive. At least, we have recognized the disease, which is a huge step. Falling off the wagon is par for the course. In my case, relapse lasted more than a decade. Finally, in my early thirties, I entered Phoenix House and stayed for two years. I was locked up in treatment centers for close to three years and have worked on developing rehab programs for more than twenty years. I have lived it, breathed it, and loved it. I have also had success in treating other addicts. I'm still crazy. I'm just good crazy, not bad crazy. And that's what I want for you and your loved one.

My success with patients is largely due to the therapists at the Hills, the people I work with who are all recovering addicts. Like me, their personal experiences help make them good at helping others. The clients connect with these counselors, respect them, and understand that they, too, have been to hell and back. Alive Again is filled with their stories and mine, and scores of others, because it helps a patient to hear another addict's story. Working in Hollywood, I have treated many a celebrity, and anecdotes about them—and most of the case studies in this book—are heavily disguised. Their stories are no different than yours. Money and fame do not make sobriety any easier, trust me. The delusional drunk in Detroit is as angry and spiritually empty as the schoolteacher in Dallas. It would help if our society stopped worshiping money and redefined the American Dream to focus more on helping other people. Working in a soup kitchen or tutoring kids after school can bring rewards of personal connection that can replace our desires for drugs and alcohol or any addiction. When you truly engage in community and caring for others, it is easy to conquer the self-doubt and say, Fuck you, Beast! I am better than you say I am.

We are born sober. We are supposed to live our lives sober. We are not meant to numb our bodies or our brains. Who are you that you need to smoke weed every day? Who are you that you continue to hurt people who love you? Who are you that this world is not good enough? You have helping hands all around you, and, still, you are someone who is missing a human connection. According to the annual study from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, if a person reaches the age of twenty-one without smoking, using drugs, or abusing alcohol, that person is virtually certain never to become addicted. The study also confirms that no one has more power than a parent does when it comes to a teen's decision to drink or to use drugs. Our goal, then, is to start the young on the path to self-fulfillment, while letting them keep their individuality—to become good crazy.

Even if you are an older patient, you can be better, with the knowledge in this book, with love, therapy, and the great community of people—including myself—who know you can succeed. It does take a village to help someone who is in the throes of addiction. We must all do our part. Remember that life is sweeter when you live the way you were meant to live, when you come into your authentic self, coping with everyday challenges and truly enjoying the moments of fulfillment and happiness that await you.

PART ONE

Identify the Problem

1

The Story of My Addiction

My father was a remarkable man. He came from modest means but graduated from MIT, where he wrote his thesis, The Manufacturing and Distribution Problems of Vinyl-Coated Sisal Rope as a Clothesline. Basically, he invented a number of household uses for a new technology known as plastic. After college, he served in World War II as a lieutenant colonel on General George Patton's staff. His responsibility was managing fuel supplies for the 130,000 Allied tanks across Europe, where he eventually took part in liberating concentration camps. After the war, my dad started Kordite, a company that went on to create Baggies and Hefty bags.

I was the fifth child of Howard and Barbara Samuels, who had eight kids. In 1958, when I was five, my father sold his company to Mobil Oil for $43 million, which today would be equivalent to half a billion dollars. My father then entered the world of public service. He was undersecretary of commerce for President Lyndon Johnson, director of the Small Business Administration, and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and he ran for governor of New York several times. My mother, who was an actress before she met my father, stood by his side throughout, the epitome of a political wife. They employed a succession of cooks and housekeepers to raise the children, much in the mold of the Kennedys.

We lived on a three-hundred-acre estate in Canandaigua, New York, at the end of a long and looping tree-lined driveway, in a huge brick house that had been built in the 1800s. One of the groundskeepers usually drove us to school. Although my parents frequently traveled, they made a point of having picture-perfect family dinners. The ten of us sat in the formal dining room, elbows